Angel Τσιγκρής: “There is a way of tackling terrorism and organised crime…”

On the occasion of the official reports for the uncontrolled movement of black money and relationship with domestic and international terrorism,…
and organised crime, the Αχαιός a lawyer and professor of Criminology Angel Τσιγκρής made the following statement:
“Terrorism and organised crime constitute two of the most serious threats to the international community. Along with the destruction of the environment, are the three biggest challenges at the global level.
Evolve to multidimensional and difficult to control threats. Threats over and above national governments and national borders.
Money laundering involves converting the proceeds from criminal activities in another form in order to not be able to detect the origin. This is carried out with the introduction of illicit proceeds in the financial system, either by breaking up large amounts into smaller ones and deposit them in accounts or by the purchase of financial products.
Then, carried out a series of transactions in order for these amounts to be removed from the source of their origin. Finally, it is attempted to incorporate them in the scope of the legal economy through their investment in various business projects.
The international community and individual nation states should respond to the general request of the society for shielding by the organized crime and prevention of the phenomenon of terrorism.
As a reference to our country, we need to review directly the legislative framework for the prevention and suppression of crimes of money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
In this way we will become more effective in the areas of fight against organised crime, the response to the phenomena of laundering of black money and stop financing of terrorism.
The improvement and modernization of our legislative framework are necessary to enable the country to respond to the constantly changing methods in organized crime and financing it through the laundering of proceeds from illegal activities.
In accordance with the Organization of the United Nations (UN), the size of the anti-money laundering, ranging internationally from 2 to 5% of global GDP.
From the side of the European Commission (EU) -with the intention to cope with this phenomenon – recently stated that: “…money laundering is the core of the organised crime and must eradicate it wherever it is located”.
This is a global phenomenon. However, money laundering is strongest in countries where there is less risk of detection due to the lack of effective mechanisms to combat the phenomenon.
The EU should immediately proceed to the improvement and harmonisation of community legislative framework, in order to remove the risk of the EU to be a pole of attraction of such phenomena on a large scale.
But we have, and we as a member state of the EU to practically demonstrate the firmness of our will to fight organised crime and terrorism.
However, this will not happen with wishful thinking, declarations of intent and vague generic condemnations of the phenomenon.
It will only happen with the cutting of the umbilical cord of the funding of organised crime and terrorism from the legalization of income from criminal activities”._
The Angel Τσιγκρής he has served as representative of Greece to the Standing Committee on Operational Cooperation on Internal Security in Europe (COSI) of the Council of the EU and the Permanent Representation to the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.